The light of abyss (The owl house x Marvel)

Inside the cafe, the only two customers were two grey-haired men, nearly identical save that one was in a human formal suit and one in a trench coat.

"Stanley, you thought that obviously forged photo the delusional conspiracy theorist at the historical society showed us looked like your ex-wife, too," the one in the coat dismissed. "Though now that I look closer, I can certainly see a resemblance between this woman and that monster as well."

"That was a joke, Ford," the one in the suit insisted, "but this... Same flight attendant hair, same weirdly sharp gold tooth, same bingo hall pale skin..." This was starting to sound very familiar to Amity. "Even the name is the same. Marilyn."

"Didn't you say that the last you saw her she'd jumped out of a car and into a canyon?" The one named Ford asked, incredulously. "And that was what, fifteen years ago? This photo looks pretty recent."

"They never found the body," Stanley declared. "And... You, barista. What can you tell me about this woman?"

"Not much to say," a woman who looked to be incredibly done with everything started while she was bagging pastries. "She came in a few months ago, ordered a latte, tried to pay for it with a live raccoon, and did something to the croissants that made them attack everyone when that didn't work. She ran out without paying, we threw out the pastries she ruined, and now the rats in the back alley are sentient," the barista finished.

"Really now?" Ford asked, suddenly intrigued.

Stanley, for his part, snorted. "Classic Marylin. Ah, if anyone could take down the IRS it would have been you... But... If she's magic, that's how she survived jumping into the canyon!"

"Please don't antagonize the alley rats," the barista said to Ford while ignoring Stanley. "We have a very fragile truce with them and cleaning up if they invade the store again will be a pain."

"Some other time then," Ford mused.

"Anyway, your to-go order's done," the barista finished while handing over the bag of pastries.

The one named Ford paid after double-checking the cost while his brother continued the lament his apparent lost love. They then turned to leave and noticed the four teenagers who had observed this exchange.

The one named Ford looked closely at Amity. Then he checked that the barista wasn't paying attention. "Boiling Isles?" He asked quietly.

This prompted Amity to go wide-eyed for a moment. She glanced over to Luz, who seemed just as surprised. Unsure of what to do, she timidly answered "Yes."

"Are you stranded here?" The man continued.

"Uh, no. I have a way of getting home," Amity answered truthfully but vaguely. "I'm just here with friends."

"Alright then."

"You know about the Boiling Isles?" Luz asked.

This prompted the aged human to turn to the human girl. "A... terrible accident, some forty years ago, caused me to become lost across the multiverse. It was only a decade ago that I was able to return. About fifteen years ago, my attempt to get home stranded me on the archipelago in question for about a week. I'd heard rumors of a witch in a nearby town who had a means to travel to the human realm, but when I snuck in to investigate she was nowhere to be seen."

"Hah," the man's brother laughed. "We came here for ghosts and found witches. It's funny. We went to Salem looking for witches and found ghosts!"

"After that, I had an encounter with a... Let's call him a colleague," Ford said, "who had come to the Isles under his own power to... Well, I can't repeat what he was looking for in polite company but after using some currency I acquired to ply him with the local liquor he agreed to use his portal device to take me out of there... In hindsight, that was a bad decision, he left me stranded for a month in a dimension inhabited entirely by anthropomorphic amphibians." he finished. "Now... How do you know about the Isles? My research indicates that they're an undocumented realm in this dimension and it's oddly coincidental that you'd just happen to in with a resident..."

"I uh... Sort of spent my summer there and now I can come and go whenever I want," Luz admitted very quickly. Amity would have facepalmed if this wasn't the kind of thing she found endearing about her beloved Luz.

"I'm a little too busy with my current investigation to pivot to a new topic now," Ford declared, "but if I were to return to Gravesfield at a later date would you be willing to give an interview?"

"Um... I'd need to okay it with some people but alright," Luz agreed. She then offered her hand to shake and when the older man reciprocated Luz, clearly by reflex, shouted "Oh, cool!"

What prompted this exclamation was revealed when the older man took back his hand, revealing six fingers instead of the default five possessed by most bipeds presumably including humans.

Luz froze. "I'm sorry, that was..."

"No," the man said jovially, "When I was your age my polydactyly got me labeled a freak. I'll take 'cool.'"

"Kid kind of reminds me of Mabel," the one named Stanley commented. "What's your name, kid?"

"Luz, Luz Noceda," Luz answered.

Stanley snapped his fingers. "The vet's kid. Nice lady. Ended up talking for like an hour after she helped me out of that trap. Hey Ford, if we're coming back here we should see if we can get the kids involved."

"I'd be nice to have the whole family together again," Ford admitted. "Well, I've taken up enough of your time. Stanley and I should be getting back before tonight's stakeout."

The two older men then left the teens alone.

"So that happened," Masha observed. "What are the odds that we run into those investigators your mom tells us about and they end up knowing about the demon realm and end up being friendly?"

"Pretty good, actually," Luz said... "The weird thing is I'm pretty sure I know that Stanley guy's ex."

Going up to the counter and looking at the photos of banned customers confirmed that 'Marilyn' was, in fact, Eda the Owl Lady. This got a chuckle from both Luz and Amity, which seemed to confuse Masha and Vee, though that confusion didn't seem to stop Masha from getting down to business.

"Hey, Carol," Masha greeted the barista.

"Masha," the barista greeted. "Back from camp, I see."

"Yep," Masha confirmed. "Just got back. Long day?"

"Yeah," Carol confirmed. "So I'm guessing you want your usual?"

"Mhmm."

"And..." Carol's eyes suddenly focused on Luz. "Strong brew, black as night, triple espresso shots, and as much sugar as I'm allowed to give you?"

Luz giggled awkwardly. "I guess I make an impression?"

"Oh yeah," Carol replied. "And you," she gestured to Vee.

"I guess I'll have what Masha's having?" Vee asked awkwardly.

"She's probably gonna want a bit more sweetener that I take," Masha interrupted. "Got more of a sweet tooth than I do."

"And you?" the Barista asked Amity. In response, Amity looked at the menu on the wall and realized that she was unfamiliar with the terminology and was uncertain as to what was and was not safe for witches to consume.

"I'm sorry, can I have a minute?" Amity asked. "I'm not really familiar with um.. Luz!" She panicked and pulled her girlfriend asside. "I have no idea what any of that is."

"Really?" Luz asked. "I know a lot of terms on the Boiling Ies are pretty similar to human terms and your mom really strikes me as the kind of person who'd be really into complicated orders at coffee places."

"My only experience with bitter be—coffee," Amity corrected to the human term, "were up on the Knee and once when I was twelve and got roped into helping my Mom entertain some house guests and that was about three tablespoons of some fancy blend grown on the Swampy Toes with half a teaspoon of quinotaur milk. It was disgusting, and you really don't want to know how the beans are prepared."

"Is it like the fancy human realm coffee that they make by feeding the fruit to a weasel and picking the pits out of the, you know..." Luz asked quietly.

"I wish," was Amity's response. That was a problem with her Mom. She seemed to care more about food and drink being expensive or fancy than actually being palatable, healthy, or filling. It only got really bad when there were guests over, but if Amity hadn't learned how to cook for herself she'd probably be noticeably malnourished. Seriously, why would anyone want to eat salty fish eggs or the liver out of an overfed bird when there was literally anything else to eat first? Hopefully, someday, Amity would understand the various eccentricities that came with coming from a wealthy family but she doubted it would be any time soon.

"Well, Eda's notes said that most human realm dairy is safe for witches and a latte is as basic as it gets, just coffee and milk, so that should be fine."

That settled, they returned to the counter and finished their order. Which was then made and paid for and the four teens took a seat at a table just outside the cafe.

"So, I got Carol to give me the hot goss while you two were having that conference," Masha declared while sipping from a cup topped with whipped cream. "Apparently a couple of kids from Gravesfield High presented as mutants all at once while we were gone."

"Oh really?" Luz asked, clearly intrigued.

"Yeah, when everything went down one of those dragons flew over town and I guess it spooked their powers out," Masha said with a shrug. "You know how it works, sometimes you need a little stress to kick the powers in. Anyway, a few weeks ago a contingent from the Jean Grey Institute showed up, details are spars but apprently all the new kids are starting there this upcoming semester."

"Lucky. Does the rumor mill know what their powers are?" Luz asked.

"One girl has a super scream, one guy's got laser vision, and another girl can control the clothes that she's wearing," Vee added.

Amity blinked, carefully tried her 'latte' and found it acceptable, and responded. "That last one seems... Odd?"

"There are lots of mutants with weirdly specific powers," Masha said with a shrug. "Like, sometimes your mutant power is just that you're blue. Not everyone can be the guy who can casually flip the Eart's magnetic poles or give hundreds of people strokes by thinking about it really hard."

Amity blinked again. "Excuse me?"

This prompted an animated discussion between Luz and Masha as they, much like with the witch hunts, tried to educate her though much more cheerfully in this case. About a system based on letters she'd never heard of for categorizing the powers of these mutants and examples given of those at the top category included not only the aforementioned examples but a man who could freeze the planet, a woman who controlled the very weather across the planet as if she was a goddess, a man who had the energy output of a star, a man by whom the forces of life and death were held in his hands, a man for whom the multiverse itself was but a step-ladder, and a boy who dreamed whole worlds into reality.

The conversation, spurred on by the questions of Vee, had eventually diverged from the topic of ungodly powerful mutants to other beings of note, such as the four adventurers who flew into space but were changed by a storm of cosmic radiation... One of whom had the power to, if he were so inclined, incinerate a planet and everything on it. And he was supposedly the least dangerous. Men and women twisted into unending, hulking enginees of destruction by city-destroying weapons... The fact that city-destroying weapons exist at all in such massive numbers, fifty-story-tall radioactive dinosaurs, a country in the continent of 'Europe' ruled by a despot, not unlike Belos. Another nation, this one in the continent called 'Africa,' had produced miraculous technology but was hoarding most of it because the rest of the world didn't 'deserve' it.

"...Including a cure for cancer," Luz admitted with a serenity that Amity didn't need her empathic abilities to know was fake. "...Bastards."

And that! Luz never swore. Even something as mild as that sounded wrong in her mouth. For her to swear like that... Amity didn't know why hoarding a cancer cure was so heinous considering... Oh. Maybe human healers don't know how to treat it without magic? That makes an outright cure much more important. Regardless, Luz wasn't showing it but was very clearly very upset by it.

The conversation moved on from there to entities from outer space: Luz had mentioned the Kree and Skrulls briefly when she'd first told Amity about the heroes and villains of this world but had left out how... massive and militaristic their imperial forces across the entire galaxy were. Or that the Skrulls had already practically taken over the world once, albeit this being a religious extremist offshoot rather than the 'core' of their empire. What Luz had not mentioned, however, was the giant of a man who habitually consumed all of the life force and bio-mass of a planet's entire biosphere as well as the energy of the planet itself who had tried on several occasions to put this planet on his menu. And Amity didn't know what this 'Thanos' was, but it had apparently succeeded in singlehandedly killing exactly half of all life in this universe before being defeated and the victims being miraculously resurrected, and wasn't that a whole other thing!

No wonder Camila had been so accepting of the Demon Realm and of Luz going there. In comparison to the nightmarish hellscape that was the Human Realm, the Demon Realm was a paradise. Poor Luz was just so used to this nightmarish place that even the most dangerous of her adventures in the demon realm was fun. It was safer than just existing here. Neither she nor Masha seemed to truly appreciate how horrific the world they lived in was, and while Vee seemed a little unsettled by some of this she'd clearly gone native just as quickly as Luz had back on the Isles

Let alone...

"So remember that spree Carnage went on six months ago? Apparently, it was related to the invasion," Masha explained. "He was hunting down and killing people who had symbiotes, or used to have symbiotes, so he could cannibalize them to make his stronger as part of a plan to free that King in Black guy. He was stopped, but not before, well..." Luz had mentioned, in her lecture, that Carnage was supposedly dead... But the creep had been supposedly dead before and even with his deity dead as well that didn't mean he wouldn't continue to pursue power for his own agenda and... Luz.

...But, the demon realm wasn't safe either. While Luz was powerful. powerful enough to "beat up" the Emperor, the fact that he was back on his feet within minutes belayed that he'd either been holding back or that Luz's powers fully maturing had taken him by surprise. His claims that Luz had been blessed by the Titan were obviously a lie to save face, he might come after her... Luz had said this morning that she'd also fought the golden guard once. When her Mom had tried to emotionally manipulate Luz into breaking up with her, Amity had said that they could protect each other but... Amity couldn't protect Luz. Not from the Emperor and not from the horrors of the human realm. She wasn't strong enough.

There were no easy ways to get stronger, either. Soon enough, Amity would have her own Palisman, a lifelong partner and powerful tool that would augment her natural power with potent magic and help her stronger spells more easily and efficiently, but other than that the only way she could reasonably get stronger was to work hard, study hard, and learn all she can...

...But, she might be able to make Luz stronger. When Luz had told her about the heroes and villains of the human realm, while she'd left out a lot of very important details, she had mentioned that the 'venom' symbiote had absorbed the powers of the 'Spider-Man' she'd told her about back on the Knee, and when they first got to the human realm Luz had mentioned that her symbiote half had merged with her witch's wool cloak... If that pattern held...

It probably wouldn't be as simple as transfusing witch blood into Luz. Even if her symbiote side was able to absorb and replicate the properties of witch DNA that probably wouldn't give Luz a bile sack. A most, the symbiote mass might be able to replicate the properties of witch bile and spell phlegm but without a sack to contain them, they'd just be distributed through Luz's body, diluting their effects.

"Amity?" Luz asked. "Earth to Amity? You alright?"

"Yeah," Amity lied. "It's just a lot to take in and... I just needed some time to process it."

"Okay," Luz said unsurely. "Well, Masha says that sometimes people meet up in the park in the afternoon and play some older rock music as sort of an informal thing. Honestly, I didn't think anyone in Gravesfield would do something that cool, but... You wanna check it out?"

"Alright," Amity agreed. As they finished their drinks and departed, Amity's thoughts turned back to ways of making Luz strong enough to be safe.

Another flaw with the transfusion plan was the biochemical differences between humans and witches. While Luz and Amity had given each other enough kisses to verify conclusively that humans and witches did not have an allergic reaction to each other's fluids, blood was a lot more complex. Even if Amity found a universal donor willing to give to Luz, Luz's immune system might still react to the foreign blood as a threat and attack it. It was a problem with transfusions between witches and certain species of biped demons, which was a major reason why potions and spells meant to stimulate blood production had been invented. The blood would have to be smeared on her symbiote goo and absorbed that way to absorb it safely which was, honestly, probably better for several reasons, but still probably wouldn't be enough to give Luz magic the way a witch had.

Biped demons had the same problems as using witch blood did: Unless Luz's physiology was a lot more fluid than you'd expect, it wouldn't give her a bile sack Many biped demons had other abilities in addition to their spellcasting, but those were usually fully or partially a result of their physical makeup rather than a function of pure magic. Most beast demons were the same, with the caveat that many didn't have magic at all though a large number of them being non-sapiant would make ethically collecting their blood a lot easier.

Bug demons, on paper, seemed like an ideal alternative at first. They all had at least some magic, but it wasn't constrained to a specific organ or overly dependent on the same. Many of them were just animals and thus more easily ethically harvested—many of the nonsentient ones were either pests or farmed for food. Some, such as the bloodthirsty fairies who served as the key ingredient in Amity's favorite fairy pie, were both. But... Most bug demons were magically weak. It would take a lot of different ones unless she went with more potent bug demons. Some, like puppet demons, were powerful enough to cast spells and strong ones at that but in such cases had full sapiance which made collecting their blood ethically more of an issue which held true for most of the stronger non-spellcasting demons as well.

...Admittedly, what Amity suspected to be the strongest bug demon in all the Boiling Isles would almost certainly give Luz some of his blood to keep her safe if Amity asked, but Hooty's power was focused mostly in the form of raw physical might and the void dimension in his gullet and keeping Luz safe would require much more than just physicality. Also, the realization that Hooty of all demons was so powerful had been very unsettling to Amity and he would prefer to avoid him as much as possible, even more so than when she first met him.

That left both the people and fauna of the Boiling Isles as a dead-end, and Flora wasn't much help either. While many plants and fungi on the isles had properties that were beneficial to creatures that consumed them, that didn't guarantee that such properties would be expressed by Luz if she absorbed the plant's into her symbiote-side. Other plants had more overly useful properties that could be used to defend against those who might cause Luz harm... If her symbiote side could be used to generate sap, nectar, pollen, and spores. It might change when she'd had a few more plant classes under her belt, but as far as Amity knew the only plant that might be useful would be Palistrom.

Palistromwood was full of powerful wild magic, and it was the only exception to the ban on such due to how useful it was(though the Emperor was probably lying about the exact reason for that as well). While it was at its most powerful when worked into a palisman and bonded with a witch, if Luz could somehow assimilate raw palistrom wood into her alien side it should give her a replenishing, internal reserve of magical energy. Probably no special abilities beyond what the girl would eventually be able to do when she had her own Palisman, but every little bit helped. This was also the most workable plan: The Blight family had the connections to get palistrom and Amity would be expected to carve her own Palisman. When that day came, Amity would be able to save the leftover chips and shavings from the birth of her new friend and partner and present them to her lady love... But that was still a way's a way.

Titan willing, Luz would be safe until then and, Titan willing, it would be enough but... Wait, the Titan... The Titan's humors!

Lilith had drilled Amity on them extensively, apprently because they tripped her up when she was Amity's age, the Ttian's five humors were five resources found only on the Boiling Isles, even though it was far from the only land mass created from a titan's remains. Supposedly, this was because the Titan's body was still intact as opposed to just a hand here or a torso there. Each resource was technically renewable, which combined with observations about damage to the Titan's bone structures sometimes regenerating and the beating of the Titan's heart had led some to speculate that the Titan was still alive. However, the rate at which the Titan's body produced each humor varies considerably, and with overharvesting finding some of them in undiluted form was difficult in this day and age.

Titan Earth was the most plentiful. The titan's decaying flesh, mixed with minerals from the boiling sea and decaying plant and fungal matter that had been the first life to form on its body to create a substance similar to peat. Its magical power was low compared to the other humors, but its magic was life-sustaining and it was saturated with microorganisms that had rejuvenated soil that Titan Earth was mixed with. Thus, while Titan Earth could be sustainably harvested from mines in the Abdominal Forests, it was nearly monopolized by the Plant coven and its child organizations for use in manufacturing high-quality fertilizer and potting soil. Still, it wouldn't be that hard to get some.

Titan Bone was more potent, second only to the blood. It didn't refer to the actual bone itself, though that was often harvested as a source of metals and minerals, but to the bone marrow. You'd think then, that Titan Bone would have similar properties to Titan Blood, but you'd be mistaken. Instead, Titan Bone's properties lay in terms of stability. The core of literal bones of the earth, Titan Bone when not being used as a power source was commonly used as a component, ingredient, or reagent when creating something that was meant to last or confer resistance to damage or erosion onto something.

Titan Blood was of course the strongest, but also the rarest to find in undiluted, usable form. not only was it the most potent source of magical energy known to witch or demonkind, but it was supposedly able to open rifts in time and space itself, traces of it leaking into bodies of water being attributed to both the periodic arrival of artifacts from the human realm appearing on the Isles(other than those that Eda herself stole with her portal, of course,) as well as the old urban legends about time pools. However, it replenished slowly and overharvesting meant that most known veins of Titan Blood had dried up, and most of their locations were kept secret so it would certainly be the hardest to find.

Titan Bile is found in deposits all over the Isles, in organs resembling glands not unlike a witch's bile sack but not directly connected to the heart, though it is common to find them near the Titan's veins. Titan Bile's properties were highly similar to witch bile and the nine spell phlems, but far, far more potent. Rarely used in its raw state, titan bile that's been properly diluted and filtered is sometimes used in high-level spells and rituals often performed by multiple witches of a given coven.

Titan Breath was middle of the road in terms of power and availability. It could only be collected from the Titan's lungs, which themselves could only be safely accessed through the Titan's pulmonary artery. Air was drawn into the lungs via the Titan's throat, the entrance to which was sealed off lest travelers be sucked in and killed by the intense winds. Once in the lungs, the air was somehow imbued with mystical power, albeit one that diluted fast if the Breath was not contained. Titan Breath was almost exclusively used as a power source, but also as a reagent in spells meant to "breathe life" into inanimate objects. Amity had surprised Lilith by knowing the details of it, but her father used Titan Breath as the initial power source for a number of his inventions.

Even one of the humors could potentially bestow incredibly raw power onto Luz, but if Amity could get ahold of even a little of them all then it would potentially recreate within Luz the undiluted power of the Titan. Nowhere near the full power of a living titan, obviously, but even the smallest possible conceivable fraction would make Luz the most powerful witch in all the demon realm.

...Wait, would the Titan approve of that? It was almost certainly the will of the Titan that let Luz find the glyphs, but would the Titan's goodwill and favor extend to trying to take or imitate its power? Could it revoke the glyphs that Luz had already learned? Amity would hate herself if in trying to give Luz enough power to be safe she cost her beloved human the ability to cast spells. Why did applied theology have to be so hard?

Suddenly, Amity's ears twitched and she was roused from her thoughts by the realization that they'd arrived at the park, and the sound of the music playing. No instrument, of course. Only recordings played through speakers, but the rapid base beat paired with the powerful cords of a guitar immediately drew her attention and captured her imagination completely. It was as if she'd been sleeping for a long time and had finally been awakened.

"What is... That?" she asked, almost reverently.

Luz giggled. "This? This is Kiss." Then she peered closely at Amity's face. "Amity..." Luz began conspiratorially, "are you a rocker?"

If that meant a fan of this kind of music, then... Amity couldn't bring herself to speak, she could only nod.

Luz smirked at her. "Wanna dance?"

Amity's response was almost reflexive."Yes!"

Luz took Amity's offered hand and led as the lyrics began.

"Tonight... I want to give it all to you... In the darkness, there's so much that I want to do. And tonight... I want to lay it at your feet... 'Cause girl I was made for you, and girl you were made for me..."

Their dance lacked the elegance of the tango or the grace of a waltz. The was no formal dance for this kind of song that either knew, they mostly just spun around each other or threw each other about. Amity didn't care. Dancing at all with Luz was fun and this song that had enraptured Amity's attention... It was an almost perfect expression of how she felt about Luz... How it honestly felt like they were made for each other.

They continued their crazy, informal dance together through the whole song, stopping only when it was finished. For a moment, all of Amity's worries faded away and even when the song was over there remained a calmness and clarity. When they had a chance, Amity would talk to Luz about her concerns and they'd come up with a solution together. She should have just thought to do that from the start but, dancing with Luz to such an amazing song had brought her back to her center, she knew what to do now. And, as she looked into Luz's sparking brown eyes she couldn't help but feel that this moment was perfect.

On impulse, Amity leaned in to finally give her beloved Batata a first real kiss, on the mouth, when the mood was killed by a girl's voice intruding on the scene and making Luz flinch.

"Oh great, Loony Noceda's back from camp and already making a scene."